Chronicles of the Spellhammer Grimiore

After sleeping for the night at the mouth of the ancient temple, the party set forward north to find their target. Along the way they battled a ancient cloud giant skeleton, eluded a frost titan that was out hunting dragons, and survived an avalanche caused by an evil ogre-mage. Eventually, they made it through the snowy Hammerscar peaks. At the base of the mountains they entered a forest and looked again at the mission orders they had been given. Upon unrolling the scroll, the ink on the page glowed blue and the letters began to rearrange into a compass, presumably pointing towards their destination.

Eventually they came to a farmstead that seemed to be inhabited by three dozen well armed folk. The party officer, Maarrr ordered everyone to make camp and they would prepare for battle in the morning. However, the pyromaniac monk had other plans…

The monk snuck through the farm during the night and set fire to several buildings, killing a few of the armed men and causing chaos in their camp. He returned to the party undetected and urged the party to use the current situation to their advantage.

The party split up, taking flanking positions around the farm, while Maarrr flew above ready to dive attack down. They made quick work of the armed men, killing several in single blows (Marrr earned the nickname cleave-o-matic), and shooting down cowards that tried to escape. After slaughtering the whole camp they searched their belongings and moved on south to return to Tor’s Hold.

The party traveled south along the base of the Hammerscar peaks until the encountered a massive horde of an army under the Stygian banner. While undetected, they made their way through a nearby mountainpass to once again travel through the Hammerscar peaks. They travelled through the dark valleys with a lone human knight— hailing all the way from Hexham on a quest nearby. At the end of the day, they came to a lone mountaintop town named Havendyr that had a strange, unnatural feel to it.

The party discovered a den of vampires after the woke up to an assassinated knight. They tried talking their way into the vampire den to see the vampire masters at dawn, but quickly failed convincing the guard captain. After several battles they made their way to the vampire lair. After cunning coffin-sabotage (with holy water), a complex battle spanning three stories, and the final shown-down with the monk being charmed by the vampires, the party managed to smite the great evil in its own den. After which they put a “please don’t enter” sign on the castle and returned to Tor’s hold.

Upon reaching Tor’s hold they reported back to Commander Hargreave on their mission. Commander Hargreave informed them that he had just been delivered wanted posters for every member of the party. The bounty started off at 50k gold per head, and preferably dead. Additionally, the posters came with some story detailing them (the party) being involved in assassinating one of the only people who could prove who was responsible for the disappearance of the Muhka-Talok (the holy peace-keeping monks that united the land). So… It seems the party was set up.

After sleeping off the insanity, the party set off south and split up. The Dragonkin MARRRR… flew south to regroup with sergeant reeves. Sergeant Reeves gave Marr a magic crystal that they found on the street that magically showed a prior scene. The crystal showed the Xvart sergeant hanging from the tallest building, and enemy soldiers are taunting him. He had gone mad with dehydration and baking in the sun, and of course rage. The Xvart had convinced himself that he had become the tallest creature in all the land, given his new perspective. However after a particularly funny taunt in which he was called a gnome, short, and suffering from extreme case of blue balls, the Xvart fell to his death after a tantrum. Marrr never told the rest of the sergeants fate, and they didn’t even care to ask. Furthermore Marrr epicly bluffed his way out of being involved and blamed it all on the golem.

He escorted sergeant Reeves with the golem out of the city and to the east to rendezvous with the swashbuckler and the assassin. The party then drove the caravan and escorted Sergeant Reeves’s squad back to Tor’s Hold.

When the arrived back at Tor’s hold they had their ranks replenished by a cleric and a strange pyromaniac monk. Furthermore Marr was promoted to sergeant of the squad.

After a full nights rest they woke up to the monk burning down his tent and getting chewed out for having done it many times already. The squad collected their final mission from the bulletin board, and the mission orders informed them that the reward for success is freedom (or promotion should they choose). As they were leaving the camp to set out on their mission they were ambushed by this annoying man in flamboyant clothing asking if he could take the picture of the heroes for the warfront news. He took it anyways and apologized for ignoring their wish not to be captured in an image. The party tackled him and started rifling through his things before the commander spotted this and nearly had them court-marshalled. The commander apologized to the man, whom he called Master Graham, and the man snobbishly retorted. Master Graham quickly left on horseback after gathering his things.

The party made their way up the mountain and discovered an empty small cave and spotted a Ythirdrak (spelling?) far above. As they made they way along the north path they spotted an old derelict temple build into the mountain.

With the aide of their recently captured Golem and a siege weapon for transporting troops dubbed the “siege terrace”, the strike team made their way north to the wartorn city of Scion. Somewhere in the process the psion teleported himself into another plane and has yet to be heard from.

They regrouped with the allied soldiers there and quickly met Sergeant Reeves. Reeves and his men informed the strike team about the situation and the status of their target. The Xvart Sergeant and the newly met drow assassin scouted during the night and identified a certain creature that had been lurking the streets at night.

When the party awoke at morning they set out north to intercept the caravan. But just a few blocks away they were ambushed from the rooftops. They fought megaooze and several enemy soldiers and an Ogre. Yet they continued fighting each other over a purse of gold, and in the process alerted nearby nashrou. Yet even after winning the new encounter they pursued fighting each other over the gold. Eventually it came to blows and the Xvart sergeant attacked the dragonkin fighter over the issue. During an epic grapple (Sean rolled a nat 1 and Mike rolled a nat 20), the Xvart was instantly subdued, stripped, and rendered unconscious. The dragonkin, still angry over the issue grabbed the Xvart and flew to the highest point in the city and hung him there (somehow).

The party then proceeded north without reconsidering their actions, and left the golem behind. They spotted the caravan after a good days journey and set up to ambush it at night. The yuanti swashbuckler disguised herself as an old lady to charm her way past the guards and get into the camp, while the drow assassin snuck around the south ditch, taking out two of the unwary guards. Meanwhile the dragonkin flew above, looking for a signal below to strike.

After discovering an unnerving illusion left by a mage, they sprung the ambush, making quick work of the guards. However from the shadows the lingering mage summoned a giant Achaierai, which spewed black toxic clouds all over the area and drove all but the drow utterly insane. After the fight they searched the caravan, scavenged what they could and consolidated the useful goods into fewer carts.

During the first sessions various battles were fought, a few comrades died, and new comrades were discovered by the Hojus army strike team (the player group). Through a bizarre series of events caused by: misunderstandings, being at the right place at the right time (accidentally), and the misfortune of comrades; the strike team was formed and entrusted with high-value orders that others simply couldn’t pull off. These orders were often delivered on sealed parchment bearing the red wax seal of the ruling council of Archmages.

In the first session the strike team was launched out of catapults with a single charge wand of feather fall. Their mission was to neutralize the enemy golem control rod holders and if possible, capture golems to use. And so a the Captain, a Psion, Swashbuckler, Bard two Fighters were launched with surprising accuracy over the vast battlefield and slowly descended upon the enemy. Due to this clever tactic the battle was quickly won, and the squad captured a control rod. During the fight they managed to route or kill several other squads, capture a catapult and kill off a much tougher golem control rod officer. In the process the bard was slain by a mighty ogre. Without even taking a moment to mourn her, the party looted her corpse for anything valuable.

After being reunited with their Captain, and now being in control of two captured golems, the squad managed to spot through the smoke and chaos of the battle the enemy commander on a far hill to the north. The squad decided to rush the enemy commander and in the process managed to force a full retreat of the enemy force.

The squad then regrouped back at Tor’s Hold and was given a full nights rest. In the morning they were given new orders to find Sergeant Reeves and his squad in the ruined wartorn city of Scion to the north.